The era of Google’s dominance in search and advertising hasn’t been one in which the news sector has thrived. In fact, it has coincided with a calamitous collapse in revenues and a dramatic contraction of the industry overall. What they’re worth to us has been, overall, less than zero. The news industry has gone backwards. Yet news businesses still can’t conceive of managing without them.
Source: Perhaps Google is really worth nothing to the news industry
Ministers are planning a fresh round of reviews they hope will mollify lawmakers nervous about controversial plans to overhaul U.K. copyright laws to facilitate AI innovation. The reviews will focus on finding technical ways to allow creators to easily and effectively “opt out” from AI companies training models on their work without permission and have more clarity about when their work has been used. However, technical solutions could take several months to emerge.
Source: UK plans fresh round of talks to take sting out of AI copyright proposals
Runway, a startup best known for its suite of generative AI media tools, has raised $308 million in a new funding round. “Today marks an important milestone as Runway announces a significant next step towards our goal of creating a new media ecosystem with world simulators,” the company wrote in the press release. “[Our recent] advancements aren’t merely incremental improvements; they form the foundation for an entirely new approach to media.
Source: Runway, best known for its video-generating AI models, raises $308M | TechCrunch
Tony Blair’s thinktank has urged the UK to relax copyright laws in order to let artificial intelligence firms build new products, as it warned a tougher approach could strain the transatlantic relationship. “Without similar provisions in the United States, it would be hard for the UK government to enforce strict copyright laws without straining the transatlantic relationship it has so far sought to nurture.”
Source: UK needs to relax AI laws or risk transatlantic ties, thinktank warns
While privacy, security, and technical challenges limit access to valuable private data, the biggest hurdle is commercial. There is no established system for companies to securely share proprietary data. Without a structured system for data sharing, vast amounts of valuable information will stay locked away, stifling AI-driven advancements and slowing innovation across industries.
OpenAI has been accused by many parties of training its AI on copyrighted content sans permission. Now a new paper by an AI watchdog organization makes the serious accusation that the company increasingly relied on non-public books it didn’t license to train more sophisticated AI models. The new paper, out of the AI Disclosures Project, draws the conclusion that OpenAI likely trained its GPT-4o model on paywalled books from O’Reilly Media.
Source: Researchers suggest OpenAI trained AI models on paywalled O’Reilly books | TechCrunch
NaNoWriMo, the non-profit organization that grew out of the annual tradition National Novel Writing Month, had a solid 25-year run encouraging writers to speedrun the novel writing process, but it has come to an end. On Monday, the organization announced that it would cease operations due to ongoing financial issues, as well as some very public drama that has played out in recent years.
Source: Longtime Writing Community NaNoWriMo Shuts Down After AI Drama
A group of European authors, performers and other rightsholders have issued a joint statement slamming the third draft of the European Union’s GPAI (General-Purpose Artificial Intelligence) Code of Practice. A coalition of creatives said the third draft is “completely unacceptable” as it “undermines the objectives of the AI Act, contravenes EU law and ignores the intention of the EU legislator,” according to their statement published on Friday (March 28).
Berlin-based BMG reported $497 million/€459 million (up 11.1% YoY) in revenue for 2024’s opening half. Like with the majors’ financials, acquisitions are factoring into the numbers. Among different things, BMG dropped approximately $540 million/€500 million on some 24 catalogs as well as signings during 2024, with 10 of the catalog deals having wrapped in H1, higher-ups disclosed.
Source: BMG Reports Over $1B in 2024 Revenue Amid Distribution Pivot
Pophouse Entertainment, the Sweden-based music investment firm co-founded by ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus, has raised over EUR €1.2 billion (USD $1.3 billion) for its debut fund. The Stockholm-based company announced Monday (March 31) that Pophouse Fund I raised over €1 billion ($1.1 billion), reaching its hard cap and making it, “one of the largest first-time private equity funds to be raised in Europe in the last decade”.
Source: Pophouse Entertainment, the firm behind ABBA Voyage, closes $1.3bn music rights buying fund